Overcome the Controlling Spirit

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Hey, I'm Dr. Ray, and welcome to my show, Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. So today I'm going to talk about witchcraft and not like uh, the Halloween thing, but the spirit of witchcraft, which is a very common spirit that attacks a lot of Christians, and how do you know when you're dealing with that spirit? And then how do you deal with that spirit? Thank you again for listening to my show, Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. Show is brought to you by the International College of Ministry. As usual, enrolling now. Always enrolling because we run 24 hours a day. We're pre-recorded. icmcollege.org. Check it out. Hey, and by the way, um, I'm teaching a class on Tuesday nights. And if you get this uh, podcast in time on Tuesday nights beginning July the 8th at 8 Eastern time, Divorce and Remarriage, that's live, and that is online. If you go to our website, icmcollege.org, click on enroll in a live web class, and you can do that. It's free. God bless you. Thanks again for listening to my show. This is Dr. Ray. 

So, what is the spirit of witchcraft? Well, first, let me share a scripture with you. In Deuteronomy 18:10, here's what the Bible says about the uh, spirit of witchcraft. Go to Deuteronomy 18:10. “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer.” So the Lord is forbidding this supernatural divination, sorcery, witchcraft, and sadly, it is all over our society. It's all over the media. It's all over our entertainment industry. It's– do you know, uh, not too long ago, I was informed and, and checked this out. If you go to a secular bookstore and go to the children's section, you'll have be hard-pressed not to find a book that has, does not have something to do with magic or sorcery. We have an obsession with that. And one of the reasons we have an obsession with that is because we have a spiritual hunger. And if that's– we're born with a spiritual hunger, it's like a, a spiritual hole in our soul that can only be filled by the Holy Spirit. It's designed to be filled by the Holy Spirit. We are attracted to the supernatural. And if you're not filling that emptiness with the Holy Spirit, you will be drawn to, and it's easy to be drawn into other supernatural things such as sorcery, divination, witchcraft, um, you know, seances, psychics, all this supernatural stuff. 

I want to make it to you really simple. Our God's a jealous God. And if you look scripturally, the only times He was ever ready to destroy Israel was when they would go after other gods. He's a jealous God. If you are involved in something supernatural and it's not the Holy Spirit, centered on Jesus Christ, it is an abomination to God. Stop it right now. Don't do it. Don't let people tell you, "Oh, this, this New Age stuff, it's fine. It's okay. Yoga, it's fine." It's not fine. If it has a spiritual component to it and it is not of the Holy Spirit, it's an abomination to God. It's offensive to God, and it opens up demonic doors which can affect your life in very, very bad and terrible ways. So, but I'm going to focus in on the spirit of witchcraft. It is a very common spirit that attacks Christians. 

Now, witchcraft is a controlling spirit. Typically, when there is uh, witchcraft being practiced, and it, by the way, witchcraft can be practiced by accident. It can be practiced accidentally, but witchcraft seeks to control people against their will. And whenever that happens, when somebody's being controlled, or there's an attempt to control a person or yourself against your will, it usually creates mental confusion. And I have seen this a lot. So, there are demons, controlling demons that want to try to control your thought life, control your mind, affect your emotions, and even affect things around you. They're controlling, manipulating spirits. Now, unfortunately, some well-meaning people who think they're just trying to help, who fall into manipulating and guilting and shaming and trying to force a change upon you, actually open up the door for the spirit of witchcraft. When we start trying to control other people, okay, and I'm talking about normal, healthy adults, demons can pick up on that and go, "Aha, we have some human trying to control another human here.” Demons will come in. That's like an invitation to demons. What the spirit of witchcraft does is it tries to control, manipulate, intimidate people, uh, against their will. And it's a very common spirit. Now listen, I'm not saying there's a bunch of people out there with the black pointed hats on that are going around. I mean, there actually are witches, and they really are out there. But the spirit of witchcraft is a very common spirit that is a controlling, manipulating spirit that a lot of people inadvertently get into. Whenever there is manipulation or control going on, it opens up a door and it's like a, it's like a magnet. It's like an It's like putting a, an open jar of honey outside on a summer day. It's going to attract flies. When there's control and manipulation going on, it attracts flies; it attracts demon flies. The demon of witchcraft. It is a very common manipulating, controlling spirit. 

I have seen pastors inadvertently get into that, trying to control and manipulate. I, I've known spouses that have done this. And uh, listen, I know we, if you're dealing with a toddler or somebody who's uh, you know, unable to help themselves, you may have to get into some control there. That, that's not what I'm talking about. But there are controlling people out there, and sometimes– you may have one in your family. I have one in my family. There are controlling people out there that try to control, manipulate, con, shame, guilt, that they use all kinds of tools and methods to get their way. And literally what they're doing is, they're, again, they are attracting the spirits of witchcraft. You see, demons look for invitations. You know, you're, you're a Christian. You're bought with the blood of Jesus Christ and, and, and that protects you. However, when you start doing things that are sinful or wrong or have a spiritual nature to them, you can attract demons to, into your life. 

Now, I'm going to just cut to the chase here. How do you know if you're being attacked by a spirit of witchcraft? And I will tell you, the fruit, the primary fruit is confusion. The spirit of witchcraft causes mental confusion. And I've seen this time and time again. I've seen it in families where there's one controlling individual, and it causes a lot of confusion, and then with the confusion, causes, it feeds frustration and the frustration feeds resentment. The fruit of the controlling spirit is really, really bad. We are not called to try to control other people. We are called to speak the truth in love. But that's not controlling. Controlling is when you're not just speaking the truth, but you use guilt, shame, condemnation, uh, threats, intimidation, in order to get your way. “If you don't do what I say, I'm never going to speak to you. If you really love me, this is what you will do for me. If you do not do what I'm telling– I'm telling you the truth. I'm telling you the truth. And if you don't do this, this is what's going to happen to you.” That's manipulation. And that's, that's control. 

And so when we get into trying to control another person, you open up the door for witchcraft. The spirit of witchcraft comes in, and the result is confusion and frustration. And you, we have to address that. You have to discern that and address that. Now, on the flip side of the coin, there are witches out there who literally want to cast spells and attack Christians. They do. And, and the spells that they use are spells trying to control you against your will. Whenever you're trying to be controlled against your will, that is a, typically a spirit of witchcraft, and it causes confusion and frustration and all kinds of stuff. If you've been suffering a lot of mental confusion or you're seeing uh, confusion in the middle of relationships, uh, maybe in your church or your job, it could be there's a spirit of witchcraft operating. Now listen, you know, the Bible says, Paul said a couple of times, we're not to be ignorant of Satan's schemes. Satan wants to intimidate us. He wants to manipulate us. He wants to use shame and guilt, and condemnation in order to manipulate us. And he wants to try to control us. But we have power over this. Submit to God. Resist the devil. He will flee from you. We've been given victory over this. We've been given authority over these spirits. But if you're not aware of this, you'll just live in frustration. And I've seen this so many times with so many Christians. It's very evident that they are being controlled. They're being manipulated. There's a manipulating spirit operating. And they're just oblivious to it. They're just not paying attention. 

And now listen, sometimes there's control, manipulation going on. There's nothing demonic about it. It's just people being people. And it's sad. And unfortunately, there are well-meaning people who believe that because they're right or because they think they're right, that gives them the right to try to control you. Many years ago, I was that person. I felt like I knew what was right. Therefore, that gave me the right to tell other people what they ought to be doing, what they should be doing. I want to tell you something. Now, this is going to sound kind of harsh, but when you're constantly telling people what they should do, what they ought to do, what they need to do, those are controlling words. It's a lot better to say, "This is what I would do in your situation. This is what I recommend. This is how I would handle it." Instead of trying to force it. You see, whenever you start using the “you” word on a person, that immediately puts that person on the defensive. “You should do this. You ought to do that. You need to do this.” Now, it sounds well-meaning, but just listen to that. When I tell you, say you're in my pre– “You shouldn't wear that color, you shouldn't go to that church, you shouldn't drive that car, you shouldn't speak that way.” What does that do to you? It puts you on the defensive, does it not? It immediately puts you on the defensive.

When we try to manipulate or control people, or, “If you don't do what I tell you to do, I'm going to have to cut off our relationship. If you don't do what I'm asking you to do, I'm not going to speak to you again. If you don't do what I ask you to do, let me tell you something. I mean, all hell is going to come against you. I mean, you…” it's it's interesting when you're around controlling people, they have all kinds of creative weapons that they use to try to force people to bend to their will. The problem is these type of people invite demonic activity. Now, listen, you can't control a controller. You're not called to control a controller. But what you can do is rebuke, cast out, and stand against the demons that are working with that controlling person. And sometimes you're being attacked by a spirit of witchcraft, and you have no idea where it's coming from. It's like it seems to be coming out of the clear blue. It's a very common spirit that attacks Christians. If you've been feeling in your mind that it's just hard to focus, it's hard to, it's just hard to get your thoughts right, and it's difficult to make a decision. It's like you're just confused about things. This can be possibly a spirit of witchcraft attacking your mind. And I've seen this spirit get in the middle of relationships, get in the middle of pastoral relationships, churches, jobs, all kinds of stuff. 

But again, we have a gift called discerning of spirits. How do you get that gift? “Lord, I ask you,” we just pray and ask. “You have not because you ask not.” “Lord, I ask you to give me the gift of discerning of spirits. I believe that you said that I should desire, earnestly spiritual gifts in the book of Corinthians. Lord, I desire spiritual gifts. Give me the gift of discerning of spirits.” The Lord will do it. Discerning of spirits means it just comes to your mind what's operating. Now, to me, the spirit of witchcraft is not that difficult to discern because the fruit of it again is confusion, frustration, um, just sometimes oppression and depression. The biggest one is the mental, mental confusion is number one symptom of, it's like a runny nose is a symptom of a cold. Mental confusion is the number one symptom of the spirit of witchcraft. If listening to this podcast and you think that maybe you're being harassed by the spirit, this is what I recommend. First off, remember what I taught you about praying. There's the prayer of petition. There's a prayer of proclamation. Petition is when we're petitioning and asking God for something. But proclamation is when we start proclaiming and taking the authority He has given us. The Bible says He's given us authority over snakes and scorpions and all the works of the enemy. The Bible says, “These signs will follow those that believe, in My name, they will cast out demons.” So you can ask God if you want to. Probably nothing terrible about that, but chances are if you ask God to do something He's told you to do, He's not going to do it because He's told you to do it. He told you to do it. He has told us to cast out demons. So this is what we do. This is the way I do it. Now, you can, you can pray, you know, get your own leading on this, but if I sense there's a spirit of witchcraft, I just get, I get angry with it, and I get firm with it. Almost like if you've ever been walking down a sidewalk and been attacked by a dog or a dog comes running at you threatening to bite you, it's not like you go, "Go away, puppy. Leave me alone. Don't bite me now. Don't, don't you chew on my leg." No. What do you do? You go, “Get out of here. Get. Stop right now.” And you speak firmly to that dog, and the dog will stop. I think the same way with demons. 

So this is what I do. I will, I will start off with a prayer. First thing to do is I'm going to pray. Then I'm going to take authority. The prayer is, “Lord, I thank you, Father. We worship you, Lord. I praise you, Father. Lord, I thank you, Father, that your word says you've given me power over snakes and scorpions and all the power of the enemy. Lord, you said, ‘These signs will follow those that believe.’ And Lord, I believe that I will cast out demons. So, Father, I thank you, Father, for that authority. Now, Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke, I renounce, I command this spirit of witchcraft. I command you to stop your assignment against me and my house. I command this assignment against me broken. This assignment against my spouse broken. This assignment against my children broken by the blood and the power and the authority of the name of Jesus Christ. I rebuke you, spirit of witchcraft. I rebuke this assignment, and I command you. I command you in the name of Jesus. Stop what you're doing right now. Stop it now. Get out. Get out. Go. Be gone. And never return in the name of Jesus Christ. Stop now. Your assignment is destroyed by the power of Jesus Christ. Amen.” I speak to it. I address it. I get a little mad with it. That's okay. I'm not, in the South, would say don't be namby pamby, whatever that means. Anyway, that's what you do. 

Maybe this show, I hope this show has blessed you. I hope it's meant something to you. I appreciate you listening to, to the show today. Please, please, please, please help me continue this show by telling as many people as you can about it so we can get more, more subscribers, more downloads. You know, you can go to the uh, website, you know, so that you can get on our list and you can like it and download. I don't, you know, all the stuff you're supposed to do to help a podcast grow. That's icmcollege.org/selftalk. I appreciate you very, very much for listening. I just hope it's been a blessing to you, and God bless you. Thank you so much. Remember, do not, you have power over the works of these demons. Don't allow demons to harass you. Don't allow it. Stop it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. God bless you. Thank you for listening to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self.

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